Invisible Whispers
by Parachutingkitten
Summary: Elemental masters return to Chen's Island to confront their pasts, their relationships, and themselves with the help of a mysterious girl who seems to have none of these. (featuring my OC, Whisper)
1. Chapter 1

It had been a few short months since we had last been on the island. The three of us had collectively decided to go back to look for anything left. Some had left the island with what Chen promised them. Others of us hadn't. You see, some of us were promised vague entities. Power. Knowledge. Acceptance. But some of us had been promised real tangible things. Things that had been lost. Taken from us for… a long time now. We were the ones going back. It was an odd group. The masters of Metal, Shadow, and Mind. None of us would admit to what it was we were looking for. Maybe out of sensitivity, or embarrassment, or simply to spare the others a sob story. I had no need to intrude on any of their reasons. So I didn't. The curiosity ate at me, but I have boundaries on how I use my powers.

We had been walking in silence for a while. Dark shadowy passageways tend to do that to people. Shade was at the lead because he could better sense if danger lie ahead of us in the darkness. Karlof and I walked behind him, bored and rather distracted.

"Not to intrude," I spoke. "But are we sure we're headed the right direction? None of us can know for sure, but depending on what we're looking for, some locations maybe be more ideal than others."

"Even if it wasn't, I'm not sure we could find our way back out of this place," Shade grumbled.

"First of all," I began. "of course we could find our way out, I have a photographic memory."

"Oh, right. Mr. Hot-shot-mind-reader can do everything," Shade rolled his eyes.

"Second of all," I ignored him. "I'm just asking if it's smaller, or larger. Are there any… special conditions it would have to be kept in-"

"Karlof is not looking for giant metal man if that's what you're getting at."

"Thank you," I sighed.

"It is very important that Karlof finds the item," He continued.

"Why is that?" I asked.

His eyes shifted to the floor. "Has to do with my family."

"Big surprise there," Shade mumbled.

"What. You knew Mr. Hot-shot?" Karlof mocked.

"It's the only reason any of us are here."

"Why would you assume that?" I questioned.

"Look." Shade spun around to face us, stopping the groups progress in doing so. "Chen's got dirt on everyone's parents. He's the one who started the serpentine wars, and our parents were the ones who died in them, so we all have questions that need answering." His face softened as he turned back around. "It's the only thing that could get anyone back to this awful island anyway," He mumbled as he continued walking.

Karlof and I shared a glance before following him again.

"We've been wandering down this tunnel for quite some time," I continued. "Maybe we should turn back and try another route?"

"There's a turn just up ahead," Shade insisted. "Maybe that means something."

"Yeah," Karlof shrugged. "Maybe it means waste of time."

"We can stand to see what's around the corner," I pushed him. As we did, our eyes landed on a dim lit hallway that held several closed doors, including one at the end. "Check all the doors," I instructed.

Karlof started on the doors on the right, I took the left, and Shade walked to the door at the end of the hall. My first door was locked. So was the second. It didn't sound like Karlof had results any different.

"What kind of sick joke is this?" All eyes turned to shade at the end of the hallway, looking in disgust at whatever lie on the other side of his door. Karlof and I both made our way next to him, peering into the room to see a dark chamber with one central light illuminating something… peculiar to say the least.

Shade had already entered the room in a fit of anger to get a closer look. "This is messed up."

"I don't suppose this is what anyone was looking for, is it?" I took a few steps further into the room.

Shade turned to face us again. "That's a real person in there. What the hell kind of mixed up mind comes up with this?!"

Karlof now stood beside him looking up at the sphere. "I have a feeling Chen didn't like her too much."

"Or maybe he liked her a little too much," I sighed. In front of us stood what looked like a giant snow globe. In the center stood a girl, about our age dressed in a purple dress, simple but with an air of elegance to it. Her streaked blonde hair sat just above her shoulders, cradling the curves of her face. Her eyes remained closed and her lips seemed to frown ever so slightly. Her skin was pale almost to the point of transparency. You could see veins along her arms, and even some under her eyes. A collection of large scars sat in the crook of her right arm ranging both in size and hue. Her whole picture seemed faded, like an old porcelain doll on the verge of cracking.

I stepped closer to her glass prison and attempted to use my powers on her. Her mind was empty. There were no thoughts.

"You getting anything Neuro?" Shade asked.

"Nothing." I concentrated a bit harder. There were no memories for me to access, no images I could see, but as I continued I was hit with a powerful feeling.

Weakness.

I opened my eyes and looked back up at her for a moment.

"We should get her out," I instructed.

"We don't even know if she could be alive," Shade protested.

"She's alive," I assured him.

"You don't know that."

Karlof walked up to the sphere looking it over for a moment and clenching his fist. "Well," He shrugged. "Only one way to find out."

His fists were sent through the glass, and a rain of clear shards came down around us.

* * *

 **If you don't know, I have a** **tumblr (parachutingkitten)! If you'd like to ask Whisper any questions, you can do it there!**


	2. Chapter 2

My body hit the floor surrounded in a rain of glass that I could feel hit my skin, and hear on the floor around me. It was over in an instant. My lungs ached. They gasped for air, only to explode in a fit of coughs. I tried to get my arms to lift my body upwards, but they gave out quickly. And then… I felt a hand on my shoulder. I opened my eyes to observe who it was, but the face surprised me. It was one I had never seen before.

"Are you okay?" He asked.

I managed to move myself to my knees to get a better look at him. He looked about my age, his hair a strange mix of white and black. He was clothed in gray and sat on the floor like he had been waiting for me. His eyes seemed to look through me in a strange way. As if he could see my thoughts, and feelings just by looking at me.

"We're here to help you," He insisted. I looked around the room to find two more gray figures, one with skin of the color, and one sporting metal garments, reflecting the dull interior of the room. They had come to save me. Most likely risked their lives. If Chen found out I was free and discovered them here-

"Can you not speak?" He continued. I turned back to him and held a finger to my lips.

"Shush!" I quickly stood, making my way over to the door as best I could. I hadn't used my legs in quite a while.

"What was that for?" Spoke another voice, I presumed to belong to the gray-skinned figure.

I turned around, looking him in the eye, and shushed him again. I returned to the door, standing on my tiptoes to peek through the door window at the hall.

"What's your problem?" He spoke again.

"Can you please just whisper?" I asked him, not bothering to turn my head this time.

"Fine," He complied. "What the hell are we whispering about?"

"I don't want to get caught." I had studied the hall for a good time now, and there was no movement. We were safe for the time being.

"By who?" The third voice finally spoke. Evidently, he wasn't especially bright. The situation was pretty clear.

I turned to look at them again. "By Chen, by guards, by-"

"Miss," The first man spoke again. "We are the only ones on the island."

My brain froze for a moment. The only ones? How was that possible? My eyes trailed to the floor. "So, the island was evacuated?" I kept my voice at a whisper still.

"It's a bit more complicated than that."

"But, Chen would never-"

"Chen is dead." My eyes widened, looking back at my saviors. Dead? Had they killed him? How did they do it…?

"Who are you?"

They all glanced at each other for a moment not knowing exactly what to say. The first one stepped forward again. This was good. I think I trusted him the most. Maybe because he was the first one I saw, but more than that, he seemed to understand the situation.

"We are a small group of elemental masters. My name is Neuro, master of the mind." Elemental masters? What did that mean? I had heard that term before, but I couldn't place when. "And they are Shade, and Karlof, masters of shadow and metal." He motioned to the others. "Who are you?"

My mouth opened but struggled to find words to describe myself. "Um… I'm… An experiment."

Neuro, now in front of me, took one of my hands. He was a lot taller than me than I had first thought. "What's your name?" He smiled.

Again, my mind struggled to find an answer. "I mean… Subject K012?"

"Oh no." Karlof shook his head. "That is not going to work. Karlof will find a new name for purple lady."

I laughed softly. "Thank you. I think I'd like that."

"What do you mean you're an experiment?" Neuro continued.

"Chen was trying to turn me into an anacondrai warrior."

"Yes, he was trying to turn all his followers into anacondrai," He agreed. "And he succeeded just a few months ago. He used a spell-"

"A spell?" I questioned. As in a magic spell? "No, he always said he was going to use my blood for the transformation."

"What about Violet?" Karlof spoke up. "It is other name for purple. Very clever I think."

"Actually," I stopped him. "I'm not especially fond of purple. I'd rather not have my name be a reflection of the thing Chen was trying to turn me into."

Karlof studied me for a moment. "That makes sense. Karlof will find even better name for you."

I smiled back at him as he retreated into his thoughts again.

"Hold on." Shade intervened. "What was it you were saying? Chen wanted to use science to turn his followers into snakes?"

I nodded. "I was his primary test subject. I don't know why."

Neuro looked me over for a moment. "There had to be a reason you were an ideal candidate. Unless of course there are more like you that he used."

"Well," I hesitated a moment. "Sometimes there would be, but you know how it is around here… Only one can remain."

The room was silent for a moment more.

"What about Cindy?" Karlof spoke. "You seem like a Cindy."

"We're not calling her Cindy," Shade shook his head.

"Why not?"

"I knew a girl named Cindy, most annoying girl I've ever come across."

"You are right. New lady is not annoying, we can not call her annoying name."

Neuro ignored them as he thought the situation over. "Well, either you survived the longest out of dumb luck, or you survived the longest because you were specially selected. Why though?"

I shook my head. "I don't know. I wish I did."

"What was your life like before Chen captured you?"

I felt my throat tighten as he asked. Tears threatened to peak into the corner of my eyes, and my hands began shaking. "I…" My head began to shake gently. "I don't remember." Suddenly the walls around me seemed much closer, much tighter. The tears began to spill over as I moved away from the group towards one of the desks on the side of the room. I needed to get the hair off the back of my neck, out of my face. I picked up two small pieces of ribbon and began gathering my hair into two small bundles.

"How far back can you remember?" Neuro's voice was still across the room.

"I can't remember anything before I was fifteen." I finished tying my hair up and cleared the tears from my eyes.

"Do you remember any names of people you've known since then?"

I turned around again, thinking. "Well, all the other test subjects were numbered, and the lab assistants and guards never spoke to me. The only other person that I ever saw was…" I paused, trying to think of the name. "Skylor. Chen's daughter. She would wander down here and talk to me sometimes. Made me smile when I saw her. She's a good kid."

Shade and Neuro exchanged glances across the room.

"How old was Skylor the last time you saw her?" Shade asked.

I thought. "It wasn't that long before I got sealed away." I glanced at the podium I stood on only minutes before. "She was maybe 10, 11. Why?"

Again, they exchanged glances. "That was nearly a decade ago."

My eyes widened. "A decade," I whispered. I moved towards the podium, stepping back on top of it, looking at the shattered glass that lay at my feet. "I was standing here… for a decade?"

"I know what to call you!" Karlof exclaimed. "Karlof will call you Whisper! Because when we first met you, you whisper, and now, you still whisper. You must really like whispering."

A chuckled a bit at his excitement.

"Whisper?" Shade challenged. "That's not even a real name. It's a word. That doesn't make any sense."

"What do you think?" Neuro asked me.

I thought it over for a moment. "Well, it sure has a better ring to it than K012."


	3. Chapter 3

"Are you sure you're ready?"

I shrugged, picking up my small cinch sack and swinging it over my shoulders. "There's nothing left for me here." I stared around the small room, my eyes tracing the walls that had been my whole world for the longest of time. I bent down, picking up one of the stray shards scattered around the room. The glass that had held me hostage for years. Something drew me to it. It was a part of me, a portion of my life I couldn't remember and never wanted to forget. I slipped it in my pocket. I had found a spare pair of jeans in my room, but nothing else, so I had simply ripped the bottom of my dress off to avoid tripping over myself.

I turned my vision back to the doorway, where three silhouettes stood talking a few meters away. I walked through the frame, exiting my prison for the first time in over 10 years. My legs trembled from the amount of adrenaline running through my body. I was headed who knows where with I don't know who to do who knows what. This was… new.

"Where are we headed?" I asked, my voice audibly shaky.

"Do you know of anyone else who could still be on the island?" Shade asked.

"Um… I just-"

"We're just a little concerned," Neuro clarified. "We didn't know you were here, and we're realizing how little we know about this island in general. There could be a whole army of something or other waiting for us that we didn't count on, and we want to be prepared."

"Point is," Karloff interrupted. "We need weapons."

"I think there should be a weapons closet somewhere on this hallway. I always remember guards coming down this way to get equipped." I told them.

"All the doors in the hall are locked," Neuro sighed. "We checked all of them before we found you."

"I might have a way to get around that," Shade smiled. He turned around, his body disappearing as only his shadow lay cast on the ground, melting under one of the doors before swiftly reappearing, and moving over to the next one. My eyes marveled at his movements. They seemed impossible. Was I hallucinating? He shortly appeared on the other side of one of the far doors, opening it from the inside.

"How did you-"

"Master of Shadows," he shrugged, and entered the room again, the rest of us following shortly behind. The walls were covered in swords, spears, arrows, clubs, and… needles. Big large needles hanging like trophies on the wall coupled with weapons of war. I could hear voices in the room, but my mind couldn't process any of it. I felt light headed. Weak. my breath hitched as breathing became suddenly impossible for a moment that seemed only to continue. The room spun around me as my body froze, the world growing darker and darker, my vision blurring into abstract shapes, my eyes slowly sinking as my body disconnected itself from the room.

Noise was muffled, and I couldn't feel much of my surroundings. But I could tell I was moving. I didn't know where, or why, or how even, all I could tell is that… something.

Something was… happening.

I don't know how much time passed. It's hard to tell really, it could have been an hour, or maybe just a few seconds, but I heard voices again. They were loud and panicked, but still muffled. I started getting vision and feeling back too. I was laying down, and I figured I was looking at a ceiling.

"Can you hear me?" a voice. I could hear it. I could understand it.

"What's happening to her?"

"How can she do that?"

"Quiet, please!" A few moments of silence. "Listen to my voice. Focus on my voice. Can you hear me?"

I felt a solid breath go through me as I tried to respond. I sigh of relief swept through the room. I could feel my body shake, and my a cool hand gripping one of mine. I didn't know who it was. Who would be here with me? Whose voice was I listening to?

"Hey, are you okay? Do you think you could talk to me?"

My vision cleared to see a face I had seen before hovering above me. "…yeah." I tried to nod my head.

"Do you remember who I am?" I looked at his face for a moment longer. I knew him… his name was… "Neuro."

"And do you remember who you are?"

"Subject K012."

"And do you remember what name Karlof gave you today?" I stared at him a moment, and then sat up, glancing over at Karlof. I smiled. I remember Karlof! And Shade, and Neuro, they all saved me! We were going to leave the island! And I was…

"Whisper." I turned back to Neuro. "I'm sorry. This happens sometimes. I don't know-"

"It's okay," Neuro reassured me. "You just had a panic attack. My mom used to have them all the time." He smiled at me for a moment before helping me stand. Shade and Karlof continued to look at me in wonder for a moment.

"How are you doing that?" Shade asked.

"What?" I looked down at myself only to discover that… I wasn't all there. Pieces of my body were slowly reappearing out of thin air, in slow moving patches. Like paint, bleeding on a wet canvas. Of all the things I'd ever seen my body go through, this was by far the most surreal my eyes had ever seen. I bit my tongue for a moment, knowing exactly why this was happening. I stepped outside of the room, and sat on the floor, watching my fingers slowly reform over my hand.

"He did it," I whispered. "He really did it."

"Is everything okay out here?" Neuro sat next to me.

"Yeah," I sighed. "It's fine. It's not too much of a surprise. Anacondrai. Invisibility. I guess Chen did something right after all."

"You didn't know about this?"

I shook my head. "No. It's new. That's for sure. I wonder what finally triggered it."

"I think it might have been your emotional reaction. When you passed out, we could couldn't' find you at first. You went completely blank."

My fingers were fully visible again, as I wiggled them before my eyes. "Well, this will be… interesting to try and deal with."

"Whisper?" Karlof stuck his head around the corner of the door. "I think I found a good weapon for you."

I smiled, and stood, grateful for his efforts to ignore my strange new condition. "What do you have for me?"

He lifted a large anacondrai sword in the doorway into the air. "It is prettiest weapon in the room." He handed it to me as my fingers curled around the hilt, struggling to bear the weight of the massive sword.

"You're going to give that huge thing to her?" Shade questioned. "She's five foot nothing. You're going to crush her!" He took the tool from my grasp, for which I was slightly grateful.

"I know a match for a weapon when I see one," Karlof shrugged.

Shade looked from the sword, back to me and then back to the sword. "Yeah, I see where you're coming from. It's just not practical. She needs something light. Slingshot, arrows, maybe a… dagger." He looked down at the sword, getting an idea.

Neuro entered the room, selecting a modest pair of shurikens for himself, as Karlof began spouting off the options he himself had considered. In the back, Shade had grabbed a large mallet, and was raising it above the sword which he had placed on the ground. A loud crack echoed through the room, and only a moment later, Shade stood in front of me, the majority of the swords length raggedly split off from the dagger now in front of me.

"How you do that?" Karlof asked.

"They're the sharpest weapons in Ninjago, not the strongest." Shade shrugged, handing me the new weapon.

"Thank you," I twirled it around in my hands a few times, adjusting to the weight.

"Well, we should get going now," Shade prompted the room.

"Where are we headed?" I asked.

The group looked at each other for a moment, a little unsure of the answer.

"Well," Neuro started. "We came here for… different reasons, but we should probably get you back to Ninjago-"

"I want to help." I stopped him. "Maybe I can help you. I've lived on this island for as long as I can remember. You might need me."

Again, they glanced at each other, smiling this time.

"Alright then. You lead the way," Neuro agreed.

"Where do you want to go?"

"It's… hard to explain," Shade started. "Chen lured us all here by promising us… things. Things of important emotional value to all of us. He made good on a number of his promises, so we think he must have had them, at least at one point, but we don't know where to start."

I smiled listening to his description. "Chen isn't one to straight lie. I bet he has what you're looking for, and I'd bet anything they're all together in the trophy room."

"Trophy room?" Karlof asked.

"The room where Chen kept his enemy's greatest treasures," I explained. "Just knowing he had one room full of pure leverage made him unbelievably happy. Only thing is, I don't know where it is. Not many people did."

Silence filled the air for a long spell as we all considered our options.

"Well, we're not going to find anything standing here," Shade began moving as the rest of us quickly joined him.

"Who knows? Maybe you'll find something in the trophy room too," Karlof bumped my shoulder as we walked.

"No," I shook me head. "I doubt there's anything left on this island for me."


	4. Chapter 4

"Do we even know if there's anything in here?" Shade questioned.

"This doesn't look like a trophy room," Karlof grumbled.

"I have to trust my gut instincts. I feel like we should be looking in here," I told them. "There's something… familiar about it."

The room was fairly dark, as most of the light bulbs had broken or burnt out. The few that remained were very dim and certainly not enough to light the room, even at full power. But I continued searching through the dust bent on a feeling that something about it was familiar. It was the first unlocked door we had seen in a while, and it was worth looking at regardless of any gut feelings I may or may not have.

That's the strange thing about gut feelings. I get a lot of them. It's hard to explain. I have a lot of stuff trapped in me subconsciously. Since my memory was lost because of I-can't-remember-what blocking out everything before I-can't-remember-when, I don't have backing for most of my impulses. It's strange really, the number of things I know I've never seen or learned, but still have a knowledge of. I can picture them in my head, and have a basic understanding of what it all means, but I can't grasp it. Not really. More than anything I'd like to see the sky. A large blue sky with a field of grass underneath, caught in the rain. Rain. I get chills down my spine just thinking about how rain might feel on your skin. But for now, I'm stuck in this room with these things that don't quite look strange, but that I couldn't possibly name, caught up in what must have been years and years worth of dust.

"I think this might have been an old storage room," Neuro concluded. "If that's true, none of what we're looking for would be in here. This would have been closed up long before Chen even thought about contacting us. It's probably best we move on."

"No!" The protest left my mouth before I could consider why. Panic shot through me at the thought of leaving. I had a feeling. I couldn't ignore that. "Look, maybe you won't find something in here, but… maybe I will." I explained. "I mean, you guys came all the way out here to this island to look for your things," I continued. "I mean, what are they, what is it you're looking for anyway?"

I looked at them expectantly as the room went silent for a moment.

"Well," Karlof began. "My item has to do with my brother."

Shade looked at him, nodding his head. "Mine is about my mom."

"Sister," Neuro sighed.

"Right," I smiled. "They all have to do with your family, well… mine has to do with my family too! About my past, and my… anything. About me. This is my thing that Chen has that I want, okay? I get a thing too. And for some reason, I don't know why, I feel like there's something in this room I'll be leaving behind if we don't find it."

I looked around the room, waiting for my approval.

"Yeah, that's fair," Shade gave in.

I smiled as the search continued. For what? I don't know. I would know… when I found it. I was sure of that much. The back of the room didn't seem too distant, so I decided to start there, and work my way towards the others. As I moved, I couldn't help but notice a large box looking structure under a dusty white sheet.

This is where the feeling was coming from.

"Hey, guys," I called them over. "I think this might be it."

The rest of the group shuffled over, circling around the strange object. Shade and Karlof seemed to match my curiosity, but Neuro seemed much more concerned.

"What is it?" I asked.

"It's… alive. Whatever is under that sheet is alive, because I can hear it's thoughts."

"What is it thinking?" Shade asked.

Neuro held his hand to his head almost in pain. "It's just… screaming."

I quickly tore the sheet from over the object, only to see a body encased in the large glass rectangle, much like how I had been. The fact that more people could be trapped the same way as I was scared me. But what scared me more was the face…

I recognized it.

"Who is he?" Karlof wondered."

"I know him!" I answered. I moved closer to him, smiling as a rush of memories flooded back to my mind.

"Is that a good thing, or a bad thing?" Shade sounded extremely concerned at this point.

"No, it's a good thing! It's a very good thing! We need to get him out of here!" I looked frantically back at them. "How did you get me out?" I turned back to the glass, my heart pounding quicker than it had in a good while. "We need to get him out!" My hand reached for my dagger as I impulsively sent it through the glass, the casing shattering as his body dropped to the ground with the glass.

It all happened so quickly. He started breathing, and then yelling, screaming as if the air was toxic to him. He sat up, his body shaking violently, his pupils dilated beyond belief, and his voice still filling the air. I could feel tears fill my eyes, seeing him in so much pain.

"Hey, calm down, look at me, you know me, I know you," I told him.

He looked up at me, realization playing through his eyes as he stood. "I know you."

"Yes, you do." I nodded.

"Where are we? Who are they?!" He had picked up a glass shard, and held it out in defense towards the others, pushing me behind him.

"They're here to help us," I tried to assure him.

"WHO ARE YOU?! WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM US?!" His voice was distressed and tired, conveying nothing but the pure fear and uncertainty that ran through him. No one dared move in front of him.

"C, you've got to listen to me," I placed a hand on his shoulder. "You've been asleep for a long time. A lot is different. There's no more experiments, there's no more Chen, there's no more-"

"No more Chen?" He asked, beginning to relax. He glanced back at me.

I smiled back at him; his eyes were once again recognizable. It started up butterflies I hadn't felt in a long time. "You're safe here." I whispered to him. He dropped the shard he was holding, taking a moment to look at his surroundings.

"Whisper," Neuro began, tentatively. "Who is this?"

"Whisper?" C looked at me, confused.

"This is… well. It's hard to explain. He's another experiment-"

"C536," He finished.

Karlof groaned. "All these number people! You need new name!"

"Why are you Whisper?" C asked.

"Because I… whisper?" The explanation seemed strange to say allowed.

"If purple lady is Whisper," Karlof started. "then weird guy is Scream."


End file.
